Money over lives at the Covid Olympics: Tragedy, sickness, denial, deflection, dishonesty, collapse, and more

Not everyone is going to make it out healthy

Aug 19, 2024

The eiffel tower with the olympic rings in front of it — Photo by Bo Zhang on Unsplash

The star of the Olympics collapsing with covid on live TV in front of a global audience after they told us covid was over (and if it wasn't over it was mild) really does put a ribbon on the last few years

-Nate Bear

Welcome to the latest issue of the Covid-Is-Not-Over newsletter! We’re fast approaching 1000 subscribers! We’re at 951! At the start of 2024 I was hoping to hit 1000 by the end of the year, but it looks like we’ll probably hit that milestone sometime in September. What a trip it’s been. I’m really appreciative of all your support over the last year and a half and I hope I’ve been able to help you understand the increasingly dystopian world that we live in.

I know that the Paris Olympics closing ceremony already seems like a million years ago, that the news cycle is relentless, that Covid always seems to fall to the bottom, even in a serious summer surge. This is a regular, non-summer-bonus issue and is a follow up to the previous issue, which was a summer bonus and listed all the coverage about the games to that point. There may be another bonus issue or two before I return to the regular weekly schedule, but we’ll see.

My take?

First of all, Covid-wise, the games were not a “success.” They were not “normal.” There were lots of attempts to portray the games as a return to a golden age or a kind of “new” normal, but after a while they rang a bit hollow. After all, recording breaking was a bit off-pace.

For me, it was all an act. An exercise in denial and deflection, largely in service of serving eyeballs and butts in seats to big money sponsors. Another element in the grand plan for the urgency of normal. The toll on athletes and spectators and volunteers and families and communities just isn’t worth it. Like so much else in society, we have to find a safer way to do the Olympics. Monitoring and surveillance, clean air, masks, vaccines, treatments, better logistics, all are possible yet somehow (with a few exceptions) none seem possible. There was even active wastewater surveillance at the games, but nobody could see the data they were collecting.

What do we have this issue? The required Covid readings section is here this week. It’s proved to be very popular, with lots of clicks, so I’ll be including it as often as possible. If anyone has suggestions for items to include, let me know in the comments. There’s a set of excerpted articles, followed by a selection of media coverage of the Covid Olympics since the previous issue. Finally, we have an Olympic-themed (and revolution-themed to boot!) musical interlude.

I expect this will be the last Paris Olympics update. There may be one or more issues about the Paralympics. We’ll see.

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The covid-riddled denial Olympics is one of the saddest spectacles I’ve ever seen, a triumph of social ignorance

-Justin Lee

Money over lives: The tragic case of Noah Lyles’ collapse at the Paris Olympics by Evan Blake / World Socialist Web Site

What was once referred to as the “Olympic spirit” is effectively a dead letter. As with all modern sporting events, a tremendous amount of money is at stake in the Olympics for the athletes, their corporate sponsors, and the event organizers. Combined with the toxic promotion of nationalism, enormous pressures are now placed upon athletes to compete with COVID, regardless of the dangers posed to themselves and others.
Those who organized the Paris Olympics were well aware that a horrific event like Lyles’ collapse would happen, but proceeded with reckless abandon anyway. Summing up the callous disregard for the health of athletes, United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee CEO Sarah Hirshland stated, “We know not everybody is going to make it through the games healthy.”
Indeed, the Paris Olympics has quickly become a super-spreader event. Some 11,000 athletes and millions of mask-less fans have traveled to the French capital from throughout the world, creating a metropolitan petri dish of different SARS-CoV-2 variants. Lyles is one of nearly 50 athletes with confirmed COVID infections, with the real toll undoubtedly far higher.
The fact that the fastest man alive was struck down and required medical assistance underscores that COVID-19 remains a significant health risk to everyone throughout the world. It is a damning exposure of all the propaganda portraying COVID-19 as “mild” and comparable to the flu or common cold.

Covid and the 2024 Olympic Games - Denial on the World Stage by broadwaybabyto / The Disabled Ginger

Adam Peaty - a swimmer from Great Britain - won silver and tested positive for Covid the next morning. When asked if he felt Covid was an excuse as to why he didn’t win Gold - his response was the following:
"I've continued to fight and find new ways to enjoy something that has broken me to the core and to end up with an Olympic silver through all of that is an absolute blessing. I'm more proud of the man and athlete I am from last night than I have been across my entire career."
Unfortunately - responses Like Peaty’s are what society wants. They want the story of people pushing through against the odds. Of triumphantly overcoming Covid and coming out braver and stronger for it. Which is exactly what Peaty and the 2024 Olympic Games are serving up.
They don’t want the story of the person who ends up bedridden because they were too stubborn to wear a mask. The person who can’t compete again because they’re completely disabled. The person who’s life will never be the same. Those stories don’t make people feel good. They don’t fuel the narrative that Covid is nothing to worry about.
For these reasons I’m skeptical that any Olympians will admit it if they end up completely disabled by Long Covid¹. They will simply quietly disappear. The same way many of us who aren’t in the spotlight have been quietly disappeared from our own lives.
People have forgotten we exist. They stop calling. They stop visiting. They unfriend and unfollow. They don’t have to face the fact that we’re still here - but we’re very sick. They don’t WANT to face it. We end up slipping away with very few people left to witness our decline.

The Covid Summer Games by Nate Bear / Do Not Panic

Literature about the collapse of societies, in particular I’m thinking of Joseph Tainter’s The Collapse of Complex Societies, tells us that societies undergoing a process of degradation step down to more dangerous but widely accepted new norms. One million people getting sick per day in the summer with an airborne virus - something that never happened before but is now considered unremarkable - is a standout example of this process.
The world’s fittest, strongest, fastest athletes at the world’s showcase sporting event being picked off by a virus and it being shrugged off - something that never happened before - is a standout example of this process.
Nothing good happens to societies when basic rules of decency are cast off, when a Bednarek-ian survival of the fittest attitude dominates, permeating from the top down, leeching out everywhere, from the hospitals to the running tracks.
This virus is a test.
The body of one of the world’s best athletes strung out on a running track, struggling to breathe in front of the world, shows that we’re failing it.

Public health leader, who is also a former elite athlete, investigates COVID management at the Olympics by Bronwyn King / Croakley Health Media

Olympians are role models and when we see them prioritising health and fitness it inspires us to do the same, so there is a conflicted message when the Olympians appear to be cavalier in their attitude towards COVID-19.
On the positive side – it’s brilliant when we see athletes modelling smart behaviour – like the Australian swimmers wearing masks on planes and at the airport – footage was splashed across the media at the exact moment millions of eyes were glued to the TV.
It was a great moment for public health, sending the subliminal message ‘if you want to be an Olympic swimmer – wear a mask to stay healthy and keep in top shape’.
Many Olympic athletes mentioned they had taken Paxlovid, an antiviral medication, for COVID-19.
While it is great that some athletes had access to this medication, to support their recovery and reduce the risk of long COVID, it would be interesting to understand if all athletes were afforded this level of care – was it provided by the free medical clinic inside the village – available to all – or was it only supplied by countries that brought along their own supplies?

Noah Lyles' collapse with Covid: How not to manage health at the Olympics by Arthur L. Caplan / STAT News

The point of having health and medical expertise at any event, including the Olympics, is to ensure the health, short- and long-term, of the athletes, staff, coaches and officials. While the world has tired of Covid-19, it has not tired of harming us. Anyone with Covid in the tight confines of the Olympics should be revealing their infection, isolating, not competing depending on the intimacy required of their sport, and not mingling with others. Leaving decisions about competition up to each athlete is abnegating the duty to protect all who are participating in the games.
Anyone at high risk from complications due to Covid-19 should not be sanctioned to compete. Athletes may disagree, fans may hate it, the media broadcasting the event may object, and advertisers may threaten clawbacks, but none of this matters. Doctors must have the final say on health and who competes, whether it is swimming in polluted water, playing with a damaged knee, competing with a contagious disease, playing with a concussion, vaulting on a broken ankle, or playing with a dangerous underlying medical condition such as a serious heart arrhythmia, asthma, diabetes, Marfan’s disease, and other conditions. Doctors, not athletes, must have the final say.
It is an ethical farce for any sports organization to shrug its shoulders and leave competition decisions to young athletes who have been training for years and will ignore anything that might prevent them from fulfilling their dreams. That shows an indifference to the health and well-being of those the sports officials say they care about. It also is inconsistent with the ethics required of those working in sports medicine.
Medical paternalism has a justifiable role in sports, both to maintain public health and to prevent hypercompetitive athletes from really harming themselves. When Lyles collapsed, so did the credibility of those responsible for health at the Olympic Games.

Noah Lyles' collapse underscores our collective COVID denial by Troy Farah / Salon.com

But seeing an American Olympic star sprawled out and gasping on the track, and then taken away in a wheelchair, was more than a shocking image. It also represented the general “mission accomplished” attitude toward SARS-CoV-2: We think we’ve won against this virus and we haven’t.
COVID isn’t just spreading like wildfire through the Olympic Village in Paris — we are undergoing surges across the globe, with the World Health Organization tracking steep rises in infections in 84 countries. After more than four years fighting this thing, it is still knocking us out. …
The fact that we are ignoring this extreme issue, at one of the most intense moments in the pandemic so far, is killing us, disabling us and costing us greatly.
So what can be done? We don’t need to fear the virus anymore, but we need to be conscious of the risks. We know how it works and how to protect ourselves. Taking precautions that will stop the virus from spreading will also give it fewer opportunities to mutate and evolve new ways of getting around our immunity. …
We're all suffering from pandemic fatigue after being put through the wringer over the past four years. But COVID doesn’t care how long we’ve been dealing with this crap. It doesn’t care if we’re bored or want to go to sports events or political rallies. It’s a virus, meaning it has no desires, no consciousness, no autonomy. It’s just a bunch of proteins that have been randomly selected through nature to easily and effectively hijack our immune systems.

Olympic Athletes Allowed to Compete while COVID-Positive by Saima S. Iqbal / Scientific American (non-paywall version)

The Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics and Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics implemented strict rules to limit the spread of COVID, including regular testing, social distancing and near-constant mask wearing. The Paris 2024 Olympic Games, by contrast, aim at a return to normalcy. It’s not just that thousands of spectators now fill the stands, where they were once banned. The Paris Games also drop all previous COVID protocols, instead approaching the disease like other respiratory illnesses such as the common cold or the flu: officials now allow athletes and teams to determine for themselves how to prevent or respond to infection.
Athletes no longer undergo daily testing or frequent temperature checks. Players who feel ill are encouraged—though not required—to wear masks, wash their hands and avoid close contact with others. The Olympic Village has single rooms available for athletes who test positive for COVID, and certain countries, such as the U.S., provide separate transportation for sick participants. Infected athletes may still train and compete in events—and so far many have. A handful have dropped out of certain events to save their energy for others, and one athlete, German decathlete Manuel Eitel, has left the games altogether.

The Paris Olympics is the first Games that let COVID run free, and it impacted how the event played out by Simon Smale / ABC News

It was reported that during the men's and women's road races last weekend, about half a million people packed the side of the roads — and there was certainly no social distancing there.
Indeed, there have been very few, if any, concessions made to the existence of COVID at these Games — it's barely mentioned anywhere.
It is, after years of masks and social distancing, being treated just like any other respiratory illness. Paris is alive and the Games are kicking.
And yet — COVID was still there, lurking.

Are There COVID-19 Protocols at the Paris 2024 Olympics? by Sara Donnellan / Us Weekly

“We treat COVID no differently to any other respiratory illness, but we want to ensure that we have our protocols working as well. Dealing with these illnesses and minimizing them is a part and parcel of every Olympic Games,” Australian chef de mission Anna Meares said during a press conference last month.
Meares added that the water polo athletes would continue to practice with protocols in place.
“They have been wearing their masks, they are isolating from other team members when they are not training, they are not going into the high-volume areas of the allotment like the gym and the performance pantry,” she explained.
There are no specific COVID-19 restrictions at the 2024 Paris Olympics, meaning that individual athletes and teams may determine for themselves how to prevent or respond to infection. There is no mandated masking, testing or temperature checking, although the Olympic Village does have single rooms available for athletes who test positive for COVID-19.
Given the new rules — or lack thereof — some athletes who test positive for COVID-19 may continue Competing while others may decide to bow out. German decathlete Manuel Eitel announced via Instagram late last month that he had withdrawn from the Olympics due to a COVID-19 infection.

USOPC CEO on Lyles’ COVID: ‘Not everybody is going to make it through the games healthy’ / Nexstar

Team USA 100-meter champion Noah Lyles said he tested positive for COVID two days before he finished third in the 200-meter final at the Paris Olympics on Thursday night.
Amid questions surrounding why Lyles was allowed to compete, Chief Executive Officer of the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee Sarah Hirshland indicated times have changed.
“Frankly, what COVID is and how it manifests itself is different than where it was as a disease a few years ago, too. So it is progress,” said Hirshland, before discussing Lyles’ performance Thursday. “It is really unfortunate, but it happens. We know not everybody is going to make it through the games healthy. And unfortunately, in this case, he didn’t. But he thought he could compete anyway.” …
The U.S. track federation released a statement saying it and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee adhered to all Olympic and Centers for Disease Control guidelines.
“After a thorough medical evaluation, Noah chose to compete tonight,” the statement said. “We respect his decision and will continue to monitor his condition closely.”

Sure, Noah Lyles was selfish to run Olympic 200m with COVID. But other athletes would do it, too by Dan Barnes / National Post

Lyles is the mouth of athletics, to be sure. On occasion he is the ass of athletics, his antics arcing well over the top.
But the man gets noticed and he gets paid. He does things that grate, he does things that are great. He won the 100 metres and were it not for COVID, he might well have turned the sprint double. Instead, he finished third and brought COVID to his place of business, then passed himself off as a sympathetic, nay, heroic figure who quickly quarantined in a hotel near the athletes village to keep everyone safe.
“It definitely affected my performance. I’ve had to take a lot of breaks… I was coughing through the night. I’m more proud of myself than anything, coming out here to get a bronze with COVID.”
Selfish? Certainly. But unique? Hardly. There probably wasn’t an athlete in the building who would have erred on the side of caution; not with an Olympic medal just 200 metres away.

Summer Olympics & Covid Since August 7 (Plus stragglers)

French metal band Gojira performing an epic version of Ah! Ça Ira! at the Paris Olympics opening ceremonies with orchestra, choir and opera singer Marina Viotti.

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